I haven't read every writer in every language, but Shakey probably makes them all look like amateur hour. That guy who wrote Gilgamesh down is an idiot, the Mahabharata is a hot mess. It's easy forgetting that bald-headed, earring wearing pinnacle of human creativity.

I have several copies of Shakespeare's complete works - his words are always an experience, a delicious treat - now i think of it, it must be 5 years or more since i read anything from them, though so many writers, so little time to concentrate, even less when i'm writing. you've inspired me now to pick him up and read Midsummer's again very soon. thankyou!

I've only read or seen a few Shakespeare plays and poems, I'm familiar with many of the plays' story lines thru the Lamb prosifications, which I read in grade school. Another thing for my 'should do' list.

depleted of oxygen, I raise
visions...
nuture,
for the purpose of sacrifice,
an innocence of calf-eyed, lamb-tongued,
spasmodically gambolling bunkum. (bunkum?)
I am
the collective consciousness of nanoseconds
I am
the cumulative mass of memories
I am
floating intellectually
watching the world shrink;
the edges darken;
the fade to black.
assume nothing;
I'm coming back.

published in Cold Eels 2005

i would do something different with the punctuation now.
not satisfied with how it is. sigh

depleted of oxygen, I raise
visions...
nuture,
for the purpose of sacrifice,
an innocence of calf-eyed, lamb-tongued,
spasmodically gambolling bunkum. (bunkum?)
I am
the collective consciousness of nanoseconds
I am
the cumulative mass of memories
I am
floating intellectually
watching the world shrink;
the edges darken;
the fade to black.
assume nothing;
I'm coming back.

published in Cold Eels 2005

I like "spasmodically gambolling bunkum. (bunkum?)"

I'm glad this thread has experienced bumpage. It gives me an opportunity to see some of your older work...

__________________"I guess the hard thing for a lot of people to accept is why God would allow me to go running through their yards, yelling and spinning around."
--- Jack Handey

"A little nonsense, now and then, is relished by the wisest men."---Willy Wonka

ME: I guess death clarifies.
CURIOUS_IN_CALI: Death is like camping. You pack up just what you need and go.

when memory and mind they ride
one on either shoulderside
twinned slices of oppressive night
obsessive thoughts they seize upon
the pleasures of the day,
turn them
over
and over
as cartwheels thru the mire,
pick-pecking loose cold splinters,
meddling with ignoble spite,
rough-plucking at the hub that holds
joy's radiating spires till
poor pleasure's all but poisoned,
sullied, compromised and tired;
consumptively is fed into
those snarl-jawed fev'rish fires.

today my chest aches with breathing,
and art for mental-health's sake gilds
the tarmac roads a casual silver,
lustral waters to guide the flight of
a swan,
a prodigy,
a prodigal son;
a pilgrim, a martyr, an impious king
retracting statements to barter his soul as his ring
invites the soft judas-bruise of a kiss
all this
in the land of the silver shallows, fluting reeds.

sleek cats melt into crevices of shade,
late again on noiseless paws,
broken glass a harvest of afflictions;
and sacred cows, pretentious and tasteless,
vibrate to the rumble of drums
as they fitfully resound from distant towers
that brood in virtual isolation.

I am constrained only by myself,
my self-imposed dimensions;
dispel such fostered failings with a plainly blunt remark;
indulge the bloody hand, the bruised reed;
the plots of grain, the clover fields,
dull sullen lamps and tints of air...
get used to it,
feral thoughts are up for the highest bidder
and refuse to be recalled, once thought.

I'll not corrupt Aditi with one single roughcast pearl;
the stormcock will still sing though flint draws spark;
black diamonds will still gleam, albeit darkly,
modest as the prayers that spill from cleft lips.
shabby columns will still stand,
the power of stone will ever prevail
and cattlelands will span man's far-flung empires.

as sibilant sands are taught to speak by the lazy waves,
and lazy grey waves take their colour from platoons of cloud,
so do shrieks on the wing sail equally
from the lips of the laughing slut,
irregular and sharp enough
to banish fantasies by firelight
where claggy pools and quicksands pull
at phantoms on the move.
and it's the rook, not the crow,
whose arrowing flight
strikes sometime-dread
for its colour of night is the omen of death
to those clouded brains
where only clouded thoughts exist.

lick my open eys
cos the crowman's come
lick my open thighs
when the crowman's done

spread those tattered pinions wide
blink that swift grey wink, death-eyed
tilt that shining head just a little offside
summon from within all that's been said
cold slabs of meat
to dress your buttered bread

carrion fan come pick the shreds
don't be shy cos i'm not kicking
just laying stiff as death here on our bed
that savage breath of life still hidden
lick lick licking thru my flesh unbidden

c'mon now
lick my open eyes like a crowman's son
lick my sweet surprise
with your crowman's tongue
life's a party
death's a ball
get over the smell
cos it comes to us all
crowman lick the putrid fruit
rotten to the very core
lick this dish of flies and shoot
but the crowman's never satisfied
crowman he'll want
crowman will want
crowman still wants
more

Another...
and another one yet!
and beyond that
mile after mile
an infinity of cloning
steadfast
rooted
waiting to begin
that spin of spins
these phenomenal-awesome
rock bound-and-booted
incredible flying machines...
(...they could steer a world...)

one of my first hard-copy pieces published - in an anthology called A Path Less Travelled.

in the uppersky of towering pride
a melancholy star,
sun of the sleepless,
vents sorrowing shame through the dull hours...
and satire's sharp barbs
twist
and turn,
seeking insecure seraphs passing clouded wings
over painted fields of hopeless dreams;
but that bitter reward,
the lusty sear that, alone, is sweet revenge
is lost
for they're tinged by time and soft-touched strings.

...chains in his eyes...

distorted and pale the hostile bones,
vain dwellers in the dust;
feet of clay in the torturing hours
shuffle in the lust of sway
and slavish thoughts, a stream to court the shore,
are punishments enough to bear
- heavy as the weight of a nation.

...stones in his mouth...

in the dead hue of eternity
he sees blest shades;
and the malignant grasp of fruitless tears
a crimson cloud so softly dark -
a hollowing answered only by the rocks,
untaught to yield...
and every way he turns
he scents upon the night,
tasting on the air - pervasive and corrupt -
one who has about them the smell of a liar
- an overshadowing of his loneliness.

Fine.
Let's do this then.
Let's hurl some verbage onto page,
its lines a martyrdom - a silent suffrage
shackled;
beaten to accede to my requests,

accomodate, mid-wive the inky blue instead
of shouldering a burgeoning of all its hues at my behest -
accomplice to those thoughts that needs be
thrown and coddled,
modelled into something grand,
unplanned
until its moment of inception, yet
quite wonderful when spinning on the
verge of something special...

The muse leads on, and teases with a flourish -
the sour nipple offered fails to nourish
and I'm conned for my temerity -
for how I have assaulted her - effrontery!
what nerve!

Seems that when I go head to head with verve
(with diving boots of lead on two left feet)
she turns her gaze aside till I'm bereft,
her justice mete

...and all the words just zombie-shuffle,
line to line with nothing said;
no spark of living lights the walking dead.